Fulcrum
by Hyliian
Summary: Death's take on the events of Halloween, 1981. (One-shot side story to On a Pale Horse; reading that one is not required, per se, but it won't make much sense otherwise.)


**A/N:** _The characters here are from my other story, On a Pale Horse. Reading that one is not required, per se, but it won't make much sense on its own._

* * *

Death lifted his head from where he'd been slouched behind his shell, listening idly as the mortals bickered and squabbled around them, as absinthe eyes bled black. His distraction went unnoticed as he felt a pull on his power, like the grasping fingers of a starving child tugging at the hem of his robe, and with a flick of will his consciousness unfurled and became Infinite.

He was Death, after all. He was in all places, in all times, all at once—effectively omnipresent. He merely limited his perception to _here_ and _now_ because being everywhere and everywhen at once tended to take all the fun out of things. It was hard to enjoy life if you knew everythingall the time, and Death was a devout practitioner of enjoying life (he cackled to himself at the irony).

He swung his focus towards the tug on his magic, pulling his mind and self away from everywhere and everywhen to _there_ and _then_ with as much dismissive ease as one would use while stepping over a pebble. For Death, the concepts were remarkably similar. What was time, after all, but a stepping stone for a True Immortal like himself?

He pulled the power of his Cloak to the surface, rendering him intangible and invisible to mortal eyes as he stepped out of Infinity and into a nursery decorated in glowing black and silver runes.

Death peered at the nearest rune, curious, and recognized the flavor of the magic clinging to them as his own. He certainly didn't remember donating the magic for these runes, but he obviously had—and would in the future—so didn't bother worrying about it. He was often running into things that he hadn't done yet; such things tended to happen amusingly often when you treat centuries like revolving doors.

He wasn't surprised when the door to the nursery burst open and a red-haired woman rushed in, a crying bundle clutched to her chest. He recognized the room from the memories left to his shell by his mother, and had to admit to some slight curiosity as to how events would proceed.

When the tall, pale form of Voldemort stepped imperiously through the doorway, Death took a step closer. As he listened to the woman pleading for the life of her son and the Dark Lord commanding her to step aside, Death contemplated the decision he was about to make.

He could save Lily Potter. It would be a simple matter to crush the Dark Lord like an insect, and he could rip James Potter from the afterlife and force him back into his body with only a _mite_ of soul-searing agony. He could give his shell the life he'd always wanted, with loving parents and maybe a sibling or two, with but a single brush of skin. He could prevent the war that was to follow, stop the deaths and the torture, and make the world _a better place_.

He could save Lily Potter. His magic was already thick in the room thanks to the runes and his own presence here, and he already knew he'd acquired a taste for Voldemort's soul in all its incarnations. He could save his shell from fifteen years with the Dursleys, from the horrors of his Hogwarts years, from the loss of his godfather, from the inevitable betrayal of the Wizarding World. It would be simple.

" _Avada Kedavra!"_

Death stood by and did nothing. He watched as Lily Potter fell to the ground, her soul and magic ripped from her body by the runes she'd inscribed along the walls, lighting up the entire array in a web of black lightning and silver stars. He watched as the runes hummed ominously, their near-sentient consciousness (he was his magic and his magic was him, even the smallest sliver of it contained the entire will and power of Death) honing in on Voldemort as the man sneered and lifted his wand a third time and fired the killing curse.

Death watched as the runic array containing his magic and the soul-magic sacrifice of Lily Potter snapped into action at beyond the speed of thought, shearing the killing curse down the middle as it lashed out in a single bolt of pure malicious intent and speared Voldemort through the chest. Death watched as Voldemort screamed, as the magic of the runes erased his body and reached greedily for the tattered remnants of his soul.

Death stretched out a hand and delicately grasped the strands of rune-magic between his fingertips, halting it in its tracks as the remainder of Voldemort's soul fled the room in fury, oblivious to what had almost just occurred.

He idly drained the runes of their magic and reabsorbed it into himself, flicking the soul of Lily Potter onto the afterlife to join her husband with an absentminded thought. Death stood motionless in the room, the crying, squirming form of his mortal shell his only companion.

Stirring to life again, Death stepped over to the crib and Unforgivable eyes peered down into bright green. Death bared his teeth in a smile, and his shell laughed delightedly, clapping his hands.

No, Death mused to himself as he reached down and cradled the tiny form of his mortal shell to his bony chest. He wouldn't change a thing. The Potters had to die here so that his shell would grow into the man that he does. A single ripple could erase all that his shell currently was; a single difference in word or deed could irrevocably change who his shell would become.

And that was unacceptable.

Reweaving timelines was a simple enough matter, but for every timeline he erases, the potential of every soul in the universe was likewise destroyed. Death would not suffer even such a paltry, temporary death of character for his shell.

The lives of two insignificant mortals was a small price to pay in comparison.

Death felt his shell's godfather approaching, and carefully set his shell back down in the crib, combing long fingers through the small tuft of hair upon his head. Lily and James Potter would remain dead. His shell loved them with near-fanatical devotion, and their continued existence would both negate the situation which facilitated his summoning to this reality, as well as threaten the current bond he shared with his shell. He had lived too long and seen too much to be anything but selfish, and he would see the world break beneath his rage before he risked losing his shell's friendship to something as inconsequential as _parents_.

His lips peeled back in a shark-like grin as he pulled the power of the Cloak around him in time for the mortal godfather to burst into the room frantically, turning on his heel as his consciousness left _there_ and _then_ and stepped back into Infinity.

He was Death, after all, and Death suffered no competition.

* * *

 **A/N:** _I MEANT to post this yesterday (on actual Halloween, great job Elizabeth), but oh well. And before anyone asks, no - On a Pale Horse is not abandoned. I'm just buried under college work and work work and therefore have like negative time for writing outside of my English courses. _


End file.
